They talked about business for less than five minutes and then told me to leave because they were going into a closed door meeting. It was untrue, and it was illegal, but it didn’t matter. They did it anyway. And this is why we need local journalists. They are the eyes and years of our communities.
I support local journalism by paying for subscriptions to newspapers. I also read them and share their articles… things aren’t going to get better with the loss of local journalism. If you can afford to subscribe to your local paper, I hope you will.
You are so right. If you haven’t read Professor Timothy Snyder’s book “On Freedom” you should. He writes about this beginning on p.182.
My son worked for the local metroparks and during the Black Lives Matter unrest he suggested they do an outreach to include more members of the community. They refused, so he quit. He's now editor of the social outreach section of our local newspaper, so we subscribe to help share the messages.
Thank you, friend
The problem is "local" papers are increasingly owned by a weird right wing company.
My local paper, established here 100 yrs ago, was bought by a way out of state conglomerate. Shut down print, made it so journos couldn't make any living. They went from readership in '02 of 21k, to now less than 1k. And subs are now 9x what they were in '02. No circ, no adverts, no journos.
Topping that off, online "local" news is populated by nothing but a bunch of gorillas flinging feces in every direction. It's all about the b*tch, no matter how it started. I no longer believe this is fixable.
Our local rag is extremely right-wing, white x-tian nationalist. I can't even stand to read the headlines.
How do you share the articles? I can see them as a subscriber but they are behind a paywall. I’m thinking copy/paste would violate copyright. ?
I was in my car driving home from work in 2018 listening to @npr.org . It was the story of the last independent news outlet closing down in Hungary. I was depressed by the news and feared, even then, how much longer truth would have a place here at home. Your message is important!
I began attending school board meetings when I was contemplating running. I was the only non-employee/non-media in the gallery. At my first meeting, I was asked (nicely) what I was doing there; only because it was unusual to have a citizen show up who didn't have a beef. LOL Meeting started.
I was online & sharing updates via social media. I was then asked (not-so-nicely) during a break to cease. Why? Because board members might feel uncomfortable about speaking up during the meeting. I was dumbfounded. Journalists were seated in the gallery. It was an open meeting. I politely refused.
Now that I'm a member of my BOE, I continue to support those in the media. I've worked in journalism and/or the media my entire career. Their work is vital to transparency. Viewing them as an enemy or an impediment rather than as a partner is a disservice to society.
I subscribe and write letters to my local papers … the Boston Globe and North Reading Transcript. The former published maybe three of my letters a year, the latter as many as I write. I also write directly to Globe columnists. Some acknowledge my letters, others don’t …
Bluesky is mostly an echo chamber. You write the rare posts that provide a unique perspective. The Globe is mostly an echo chamber but does present some breadth and depth of viewpoints. Recently it seems to have slipped. Ironically my town paper serves as the best forum …
… to express my perspective and challenge others’. I put up with Bluesky because I occasionally get info here that I don’t get elsewhere. I often copy what I find to Facebook because I have friends there who don’t use Bluesky. We need to get better at leveraging our tools. We also need to …
… do what the far right has been doing for 40 years and build from the bottom up.
I know it’s exhausting, but we HAVE to be engaged at the local level. This is where the Orange Felon’s base lives. This is one of the most important places to fight right now. We have to take our whole country back - bottom to top.
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Missouri doesn’t have an ethics department
The remains of our local newspaper in Pulaski county delivers news on his Facebook page. He covers most local government meetings and every meeting has a closed door portion. Sometimes people in the comments call them out on it but it still happens every meeting
This is the result of the consolidation of most small town papers into national companies. To make it worse these companies are usually very conservative. Same is true of local tv outlets. Aside from the poltical implications it is very destructive of local identities across the country.
It's intentional. Conservative groups have been buying Spanish language radio stations for the last decade, too. So when you see that 55% of Latino men voted for Trump, now you know why.
Because so many are kept in the dark, people seriously underestimate how much decision making power city councils have for everyday life issues.